CHENNAI
Sunday, December 4

It's half past one in the morning, and I am standing on the nondescript Kotturpuram bridge. No, I am not about to throw myself off the bridge. Instead, like dozens of disaster tourists around me, I am peering into the dark, oily water swirling up in volumes that the residents of this water-scarce city have seldom seen. Torrential rains over two straight days have finally drowned the city, already limping from two previous rainstorms. In the early hours of Saturday, authorities have been forced to release about 17,000 cusecs of water from the Chembarambakkam lake and the Red Hills reservoir. That has caused the already swollen Adyar and Cooum rivers, which snake through the city on their way to the sea, to flood their banks, devastating low-lying areas along the waterways.

Disaster zone: Industrial units like this one in Ambattur have been the worst hit and recovery will be a long haul

Driving towards Kottur, we are forced at one point to turn back as we meet water rising menacingly in the narrow street in front of our eyes. It's a poor neighbourhood, and people are lining up outside their homes, waiting quite passively for the flooding to begin. As always, the poor are the worst hit, and these tenements and slums closest to the rivers will soon be washed out. And the loss to business is, of course, tremendous. Shops, offices, factories, and schools are closed, commuting has halted, and with pillar-boxes under water, electricity has been cut off to many areas. After Mumbai and then Bangalore, all this now looks very familiar.

The Adyar river runs alongside the Guindy Industrial Estate (GIE), a major hub for small and tiny scale industries in the city. That morning, factory owners, hearing of the impending water release, rushed to move machinery and stores out of ground floors and basements to higher floors. Within hours, water gushed in, rising well over eight feet in the worst affected parts. Later that evening, I am talking to Vijay Subramaniam, who owns an SSI unit there. He has been there all day with his workers, trying to contain the damage: "We are under eight feet of water, I have taken out what I can, but there's machinery bolted to the shop floor... motors and generators are ruined."

Of roughly 500 factories in the Guindy Industrial Estate, about 150 are located along the river and they are the worst affected. Says T.C. Dayalan, Hony Gen. Secy, Tanstia (Tamil Nadu Small And Tiny Industries Association): "Losses to units in the GIE range from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 12 lakh each. Motors, transformers and finished goods have been destroyed."

Knee-deep in trouble: Factory owners fear that delays in delivery may result in loss of export orders

The Ambattur Industrial Estate in north Chennai is another disaster zone. A channel running through the estate takes most of the overflow from the Red Hills Lake, and the estate is easily flooded. About 950 units in the north phase are worst hit. Says K.P. Shashidar Rao, President, Ambattur Industrial Manufacturers Association (aiema): "The estate has a turnover of about Rs 5 crore per day. We have lost Rs 20-25 crore." For Ambattur, the heavens couldn't have opened up at a worse time. Home to a variety of industries including auto-parts, engineering, garment, leather, and electrical equipment, it is going through a boom. Most of the factories, especially auto components and garment units, are working 24/7 to meet unprecedented export orders. But this third consecutive rainstorm has caused huge damage. Says Rao: "We run the risk of our buyers turning elsewhere."aiema has asked the Central damage assessment team to consider re-routing the channel outside the estate.

It's about 11.30 on Sunday morning, and I am driving down Old Mahabalipuram Road. It is the road that goes from Tidel Park to Siruseri-the stretch proudly termed Chennai's it Corridor. Well, the it Corridor has collapsed. There is no tarmac to speak of, just a series of water-filled craters into which my car falls with a gut-wrenching thud every two minutes. The traffic has piled up on both sides, a bus and a mini-van have broken down, adding to the chaos, and when the rain starts again, the mayhem is complete. Down this road are Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, Wipro, Orchid Pharma, Grundfos... and many of these units are under water.

Ready to dive in?: That's a swimming pool the builders of this tony apartment complex hadn't planned on

It's not just the tangible loss-shops, especially in the flooded interiors, have stayed shut for days. Restaurants and cinemas have run empty as the rains kept people at home. It's going to be a while before the losses can be quantified. Mercifully, there have been no reports of looting. When this report was being written, the Union government had given Chennai Rs 500 crore (against the Rs 13,000 crore asked for) in aid, and another cyclonic storm, Fanooz, was headed towards the Tamil Nadu coast.

But basically, it's this: after decades of dry weather, the administration is guilty of being totally unprepared to meet the heaviest rains to hit Chennai in almost 65 years. Drainage is miserably inadequate, roads can't handle the pounding... Worse, with irrigation channels and catchment areas running dry for decades, there has been large-scale encroachment-slums, colonies and even factories have been built on lake and canal beds, while the administration looked the other way. Now, the city is paying the price for it.